


As All Love Stories Go (Or Just Theirs)

by 13letters



Category: Black Sails
Genre: A Study In Cohesion, Anne is Happy, Everything Soft, F/M, Jack is so in love, Love Story, Romance, Shakespeare, Tenderness, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 07:29:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11375463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: It isn't necessarily loving, how she rolls her eyes, yet it's fondness all the same, fondness that starts to gather in her heart and elicit some feeling from him that has his smile quirking lopsided. His eyes going all crinkled at the edges.It's how he looked when he'd first offered her his blood-stained hand, didn't say much else that he remembers butrun-- all his memory finds from that day they met is the way she smiled when they were alone. Not at him, never at him, but at her husband's blood on her hands from his, blood only the salt of the sea washed away like alcohol in an open wound, the sea breeze upon a parched desert.How he looked at her was too reminiscent of a boy who grew up too quickly yet a man who still reveled and rest in liberty and in mischief,in peace, they'll say one day, but not now when he's still looking at her like she's an anchor.





	As All Love Stories Go (Or Just Theirs)

And Shakespeare wrote of a woman who may have been the sea, whole soul was just as secret as the waves -- as is depth, as is truth: love incandescent and pure, give them a happy end; give them a story like a tragedy cleverly penned as a romance, as a comedy in five acts of precise dialogue and subtext so vaguely pristine his eyes could just _ache_ like the prose were rows and rows of numbers instead. 

Think calculating, think clerical, a pirate's only true love is the sea but when it's one's heart walking flesh like brittle ocean bones of venous blood, scalloped hip bones, and ribs like crescent moons waning to draw in the tide, it's the first he drops to his knees for her. 

He calls her a goddess until she's blushing the color of his burning tongue, when against herself, she snaps at him to _just get it over with_ like it's the best kept damned secret she has, just how her chest goes all convex when he puts his mouth on her and _oh_ , "Darling," he murmurs. 

"Jack, I fucking swear I could kill you for stopping."

"Yes," he admonishes idly. There isn't any denying that, though he does love it when she talks filthy. Christ. 

Usually every time he tries to slow or soften their fucking to this tender shadow of love like the novels, she's all harsh teeth that are bruises that spread purple over his neck and across his shoulders. She's nails breaking the skin on his back, a grip on the ends of his hair so painful and pleasing his vision whites out and she gets what she wants: him sinking into the hard pressure of her hips against him. 

Others, she doesn't try to encourage him to confuse love for lust in her tactless, efficient teases. She's quieter than she ever regularly is when she does let him spread his palms over her ribs so tenderly, smooth his hands up her sides and across her breasts. Caress her neck before cradling her face in his ink-stained fingers, his touch so light that she could cry if she ever did, if he'd keep showing her what it is to make love after a countless history of only ever being fucked. Of her face in Jack Rackham's hands while he gazes at her like she's the most precious thing he's ever touched and twice more beautiful. 

It makes her vulnerable, but no more than he was the first time there wasn't any reason to _not_ , her standing in front of him without a stitch of clothing while he sat there gawking -- Jesus. It wasn't until she finally just crossed her arms and had enough of him that she huffed, "Well?" since she wouldn't spell it out. 

When he fumbled with his clothing and then the condom, was almost afraid to touch her until he decidedly wasn't. 

As he pushed every time she tried to pull and neither of them could catch the rhythm -- too much like sand in an hourglass, seawater she would try to catch with her hands while he'd watch emotionlessly from his layer of long sleeves and breeches and a face already starting to sunburn -- it was friction so close to almost _something_ that she sighed in frustration, felt pain start to prickle behind her eyelids. 

Through his gritted teeth, however, restraint and _trying_ so suffocating in her heat that he could scarcely breathe himself, "Anne," he hissed. And he stilled completely within her and began to tremble with the effort of it, held impossibly still while she just wondered why this wasn't _good_ already. "You start to move, darling. I'll -- oh," he groaned, 'cause she did. 

And moving with each other instead of in disassociated opposite directions, a friction she could feel start to curl insides out, wet so hot each move of him within her threatened to solder her soul to ashes. 

It hasn't changed in years, the effects of his life on hers, but he's always had this intrinsic intensity in his eye contact that has never once faltered or dimmed; she might not know much, but when one thing, always, is him speaking with more conviction than anyone she's ever known and always meaning _her_ at the end of it and across continents, beyond oceans like her soul like his eyes are a mirror. 

"Darling," he calls her, and _oh_ , she's never not answered. "I'm more than happy you've saved my life, Anne," he tells her honestly, truth shaken down to the core. 

It isn't necessarily loving, how she rolls her eyes, yet it's fondness all the same, fondness that starts to gather in her heart and elicit some feeling from him that has his smile quirking lopsided. His eyes going all crinkled at the edges. 

It's how he looked when he'd first offered her his blood-stained hand, didn't say much else that he remembers but _run_ \-- all his memory finds from that day they met is the way she smiled when they were alone. Not at him, never at him, but at her husband's blood on her hands from his, blood only the salt of the sea washed away like alcohol in an open wound, the sea breeze upon a parched desert. 

How he looked at her was too reminiscent of a boy who grew up too quickly yet a man who still reveled and rest in liberty and in mischief, _in peace_ , they'll say one day, but not now when he's still looking at her like she's an anchor. 

And all she can do is call him a fool and set her hands so gently against his stubbled cheeks like he's her port, too, the man she'll never admit has been her saving grace. "You weren't the one that needed rescuing," she reminds him quietly. 

"Semantics, love. Details. I won't ever forget it."

"You nearly pissed yourself," she reminds him stoically. Even if she does squish his face a bit, and a recompense, he settles for kissing her thumbs. 

"I wasn't expecting to see a great love of my life," he tells her. 

And earnestly means it. He's beyond feeling the embarrassment or the guilt that comes from living her, sometimes, like he won't be able to keep seeking from her why she won't ever be ready again to give. 

Their lives in the balance and hers in the fray, the touch of emotion in her eyes that isn't sadness for once, or nonchalance so severe he's regret like ash, like Shakespeare when he woke to the merit of a love story that was never supposed to be: a woman and the sea, _Twelfth Night_ much the same as the first -- Jack never considered himself subject to more than a passing, fleeting, occasional moment of fancy and pining. 

Love wasn't in the cards, so when Anne exhales his name like her first breath come again, like what she means is she hadn't meant to fall in love either, " _Jack_."

Just give them any story but the one that was supposed to be theirs: two strangers who might have been their own versions of stranded from a shipwreck had their eyes never met across a crowded tavern. 

"Jack."


End file.
